They probably were a lot of urgent calls sent to local commander, by all sides when the news broke.
Let the conspiracy theories begin.
My favorite so far is the numerology one with all the 7’s. Not that any particular reason is given why seven would be significant, of course.
I am pretty sure it wasn’t Ukrainian government. They have no one to shoot at in the sky, since the “insurgents” have no air force. Ukraine, though, does have the air force and the “insurgents” have shot down several of their planes. Occam’s razor…
If I had to come up with a motive for the Ukrainian Government it would be along the lines that they stand to benefit from giving western governments an opportunity to get more directly involved.
But, that does sound like the plot of a James Bond movie.
The article (from Russian TASS agency) says that the pro-Russian separatists announced today (July 17) that they shot down an AN-26 Ukrainian military transport plane near the city of Torez. Torez is where the 777 crashed.
Looks very much like that’s the 777 and that it’s the “insurgents” in Eastern Ukraine that shot it down.
A lot of the separatists are equipped, clothed and act surprisingly like Russian special forces. Maybe they resigned to take part. Just like the Flying Tigers did in WWII.
The U.S. State Department has made statements that Russia has given armored vehicles to the separatists. If they made that public then it was verifiable. Who knows what else has been passed over the border?
Preliminary reports I saw on TV state that the crash sight is in the hands of the separatists. That will complicate the investigation to say the least.
If it was an SA-11 it would get that info from the search radar that would designate it as a target. Most RF SAM systems can act stand alone and some can even fire optically with no radar at all. It’s the most degraded mode of operation but still very effective.
Newer systems have IFF capabilities or use other means of identification but you are talking about something that has been around since the late 70s/ early 80s.
Sorry, but I’m not willing to take the State Department’s word on that. This is the same State Department which told us the Bengazi attack was prompted by that stupid movie, and stuck by that story long after they knew it wasn’t true. The US is hardly a disinterested party in this, so I’m really not inclined to give their/our claims much more credance than I give Russia’s claims.
ETA: At this point, my operating theory is that it was the seperatists, using equipment they captured from the Ukrainian army earlier in the conflict.
I’m guessing the transcript was something like .
“Phooey, Tell Fearless Leader I have missed Squirrel, and hit airliner”
CNN is just now reporting that that is effectively what happened, according to the Ukraine. They are translating a conversation that Ukraine claims to have tapped in on between the separatists and Russian intelligence. The separatist is reporting that they shot down a Ukrainian plane, and on inspection it turned out to be a civilian airliner.
Sure, its easy to dismiss anything anyone says about anything. I await your first hand report from the region. In the mean time…
That was after the reports that tanks were moving from a staging area in Russia into Ukraine.
The interesting part of the story is that the Buk SAM system (which is apparently what was used to shoot down the plane) is not something that you just turn on and use. You have to have some extensively trained personnel to operate it effectively. The question is - where did the “insurgents” find the personnel for it? Could it be from the neighbor to the East?
Could be, or ex-military.
When we lived in Saudi Arabia , it was during the ‘no fly zone’ across Iraq. The commercial airlines we flew did not fly over Iraq, even if it was the direct route.
I would be careful about the tweets - they could easily be photoshopped. Twitter must have a registry of the said tweets.
There are not that many Buk-qualified people around. How very convenient to have them on the ground for the “insurgents” in Eastern Ukraine.
http://itar-tass.com/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/1325017 - that is pretty authoritative.
We’ve already had the mandatory camera appearance by John McCain taking shots at Obama over this. What a fucking douche.
Well I was wondering whose fault this was. It couldn’t be the idiots with missiles and astigmatism.